


Surely, God Must Paint

by The_Carnivorous_Muffin



Series: God of the Machine [7]
Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Humor, Self-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-29 23:07:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15739173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Carnivorous_Muffin/pseuds/The_Carnivorous_Muffin
Summary: In a world without Kira, but with extradimensional aliens, Light and Anna Jones become struggling artists, getting by on Anna Jones' outdated pop culture references from another dimension and generally bad puns. Light wonders at the meaning of his existence and if this truly is all life has to offer him.





	Surely, God Must Paint

**Author's Note:**

> Obligatory note that this is not canon to "God of the Machine"

“I hate you,” Light said, grimacing, as he stared forth at Anna Jones, his alien posing as an American roommate’s, latest magnum opus, “I hate you so much.”

“You’re just jelly.” Anna responded, also staring at latest addition to their gallery, but with a much more pleased expression than Light’s.

“That is not an adjective.” Light said stiffly, crossing his arms and telling himself that however much he hated it, however much he despised it, it was Anna’s works that usually made rent for the gallery and not his.

After all, he had costs for his, they were time intensive, not to mention the oils and canvas weren’t exactly cheap, and the models if he could find any…

Anna Jones’ garbage, was easily mass produced, and very cheap.

“It is in America.” Anna responded, self-assured, while he knew she was smart enough to know perfectly well that jelly was not a legitimate term even in English. And that he didn’t believe, that even in another alien dimension, that people used the term jelly seriously.

So rather than get caught in a debate over language use, which Anna would stubbornly insist she’s winning, because only the academie francaise was so strict over their language use, he asked, “And, what, exactly, Anna, is ‘I can haz cheezburgerz’ supposed to mean?”

Because there, on the wall of their gallery, was Anna’s latest ‘Lolcatz’ collection. This, having been created after the recent ‘Cage Cats’ collection, the ‘Derpy McDerp’ collection and ‘Honey Badger Don’t Care’. According to Anna these were outdated jokes on the internet in another dimension that everyone pretended were no longer hilarious.

Here, they were surreal pop art that everyone seemed to love.

“Well, I don’t know Light, it’s a question we must all look deep inside of ourselves and ask. Can I haz cheezburgerz? I don’t know, after all, to haz cheezburgerz I must exist, more I must be privlaged, only those in a certain class can haz cheezburgerz. Deep questions, Light. Why, I’d say this picture easily contains a thousand questions.”

“It is worth only one.”

“I can haz cheezburgerz?”

“No, why?”

“Why? That’s… vague.” Anna said with raised eyebrows, turned down lips, looking more perplexed than she usually did.

“Why does this photo exist?”

“You mean, why will someone pay for this lol cat to be on their wall?” Anna asked in turn, motioning to the picture in question, “Because they will, Light, and you know it. And you’re well-crafted, surrealist, frankly beautiful paintings will not.”

They turned to Light’s half of the gallery, where lined along the wall were beautiful oil paintings, frightening in the realism, but all with strange colors and lighting, and odd fantatstical scenes featuring gods of death, notebooks, and layers upon layers of symbolism. This strange world that Light had crafted for himself and no one, save Anna Jones herself, seemed to truly understand.

That wasn’t to say his were never bought, but he didn’t have the benefit of Anna Jones’ inexplicable popularity. Perhaps someday, but then, popularity could very well cheapen those paintings. Until, like Anna’s, they stood for nothing and everything. Anna didn’t mind this cheapened pop art, she had a great fondness for it, as she had a great fondness for internet cats. She said to him that she wasn’t quite bizarre enough to be Andy Warhol but she would diligently play the role of Andy Warhol light since god apparently wanted her to be a painter.

(This, of course, being the god that had abandoned him in his bedroom during high school, made her fluent in Japanese, and had forced her into Light’s chosen profession of painting. She had not appreciated it, ultimately wanting to become a programmer. Eventually she had seemed to come to terms with it though, certainly making more than Light did.)

Still, in these quiet hours before patrons would trickle inside, foreigners with too much money, collectors of art, and the wealthy elite, he would find himself staring at her work, his own work, and wonder just how they had wound up where they were.

Surely, he thought to himself, he had been meant for more than this.

“Do you ever wonder why we’re here, Light?” Anna asked, hands behind her head, ruffling her orange hair further than it already was (she’d never quite managed to get anything other than casual look down).

“It was the best location we could afford.”

She cast him a dull glance, “No, more existential, jackass.”

“Oh,” He sighed, not really in the mood, “Constantly, however, I doubt there’s an answer.”

“I didn’t figure you for the existential type, Light.” Anna commented.

“If I have a grand destiny then it has yet to make an appearance.” He was almost twenty-five, surely that was a sign that it should speed up a little if it wanted to find him before he was thirty.

“Dude, that’s still pretty young. I wouldn’t give up on the world just yet.” Anna said before frowning, “Well, I feel like I should know what my destiny is, you know what with the…”

“Being an alien.”

“Yeah, that whole thing. However, that’s really been the most exciting thing to happen. I mean, besides getting rich off of outdated internet memes.” Anna said with a shrug, analyzing her lolcats, “I used to be more of the existentialist sort myself, but… Well, surely this sort of thing doesn’t happen randomly.”

“Perhaps something was supposed to happen and we missed it.” Light commented dully, “Perhaps there was some great sign, some great event, that I simply missed.”

“You mean like we’d actually be important and shit.” Anna asked with raised eyebrows, “That sounds hard.”

“Rewarding, one cannot reach fulfilment without suffering.”

Anna breathed out, “My god, that was almost French. La vie est souffrance, that is… Well, depressing. I’d like to think it’s not that bad, I mean, we’re not dead.”

But sometimes he wondered if he had ever lived, ennui was the nature of his existence, for almost as long as he could recall now. He sometimes wondered if he had ever been truly happy.

Anna frowned at him, then motioned to a picture of a cat sitting on a chair with a communist’s hat, labeled, ‘Chairman Meow’, “You really sure you want to be like that guy? You could be an internet meme Light, that’s what fame, destiny even means at the end of things.”

“I would hope I’d be more respected than that.” Light said but she shook her head.

“Oh no, the dear leader was very respected. And look at him now, a lol cat. Surely there are no more pitiful destinies than that.” Anna said, and then added, “And maybe it’s for the best. After all, your destiny was probably being chased by the government and me being dissected. I’m glad we avoided that.”

It would have been exciting though. But, no, that wasn’t quite what he was looking for either. That, he supposed was why he truly painted, why he painted with such realism. He was searching for that other world, not one of his happiness, but one where he had true reason to exist. He needed to reflect it as clearly as he could, this warped mirror he saw in his dreams, where he stood a god among men, the world altering to his whims, and his own blood running down his wrist as he fell, betrayed by his own…

He had yet to make that painting, it was lingering, the yellow warehouse, but he had yet to commit it to canvas. Nevertheless, it haunted him.

“I suppose I’ll have to content myself with this then.”

“Yup, you’re just gonna have to be a shmuck like the rest of us.” Anna said, and then added, “Do you think I should do Chuck Norris next, I think I should do Chuck Norris next.”

And suddenly Light remembered why, although he was roommates with Anna and she was the closest thing he had to a friend, he sometimes couldn’t stand her, “I don’t care what you do next.”

“You should care, because the shortest distance between two points is whatever route Chuck Norris takes.” Anna said, causing him to look at her with raised eyebrows.

“I don’t even understand what that means.”

“Good, because Chuck Norris once felt fear, then he roundhouse kicked the mirror.”

“Don’t tell me this will be the next installation…” Light was already dreading it.

“I am inspired, Light, don’t ruin my inspiration.”

The doorbell chimed, they both turned to look, and then they both blanched. Standing there was their least favorite patron in the world, the obscenely rich yet obscenely creepy Ryuuga Hideki, or else Ryuzaki, or else Batman as Anna had often dubbed him.

“Oh shit.” Light said, which was rather unlike him but the situation deserved it.

Before he could tell Anna to deal with him she was gone, off in the back room, leaving him alone and the gallery salesman still out for dinner.

And Light remembered why, even when he dreamed he was a serial killer, he sometimes thought he should have been living that life instead.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a 100th review where a reader asked for Light and Anna in a world sans death note to become starving artists.
> 
> Thanks for reading, comments, kudos, and bookmarks are greatly appreciated.


End file.
